1. Field
The present invention generally relates to an ultrasound diagnostic system, and more particularly to an ultrasound diagnostic system adapted to provide spectrum images of multiple sample volumes.
2. Background
An ultrasound diagnostic system has become an important and popular diagnostic tool since it has a wide range of applications. Specifically, due to its non-invasive and non-destructive nature, the ultrasound diagnostic system has been extensively used in the medical profession. Modern high-performance ultrasound diagnostic systems and techniques are commonly used to produce two or three-dimensional diagnostic images of internal features of an object (e.g., human organs).
The ultrasound diagnostic system generally uses a wide bandwidth transducer to transmit and receive ultrasound signals. The ultrasound diagnostic system forms images of human internal tissues by electrically exciting an acoustic transducer element or an array of acoustic transducer elements to generate ultrasound signals that travel into the body. The ultrasound signals produce ultrasound echo signals since they are reflected from body tissues, which appear as discontinuities to the propagating ultrasound signals. Various ultrasound echo signals return to the transducer element and are converted into electrical signals, which are amplified and processed to produce ultrasound data for an image of the tissues. The ultrasound diagnostic system is very important in the medical field since it provides physicians with real-time and high-resolution images of human internal features without the need for invasive observation techniques such as surgery.
In the ultrasound diagnostic system, the Doppler effect is used to measure the velocity of red blood cells flowing within a blood vessel or the velocity of heart motion. FIG. 1 shows an example of displaying a B-mode image and a Doppler spectrum at the same time. The B-mode image 11 is an image that displays the brightness, which indicates the intensities of the ultrasound signals reflected from the target object, on a screen. If a user sets a sample volume 13 on a blood vessel 12 in the B-mode image 11 by using a user input interface such as a track ball, then the ultrasound diagnostic system acquires Doppler data of the sample volume and provides a Doppler spectrum image 14 or sound corresponding to the frequency or velocity.
However, since the conventional ultrasound diagnostic system provides Doppler data only for a single sample volume, there is a problem in that the Doppler data corresponding to the sample volumes, which are located elsewhere in the ultrasound image, cannot be provided at the same time.